


grace & mercy

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Canon, Elf Hawke, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderqueer Character, Orsino Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 03:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2532926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate endgame, but also a completely alternate canon from beginning to end.<br/>Take a shot every time something blatantly non-canonical crops up. Try not to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grace & mercy

Sometimes Daniel got a strange bright look in hir eyes, and hir hand would clamp onto whomever was nearby, and ze’d speak. Sometimes a word or two, occasionally a barrage of words, but usually a single statement. And whatever Daniel said would come to pass.

Daniel’s hand had gripped Ketojan’s wrist in a viselike grip, and the words had come slowly, inexorably, as if pulled from hir very bowels with a sharp instrument.  
"The sky will tear and the circle will break. No mercy, no saviour, only grace."

Ketojan had been turning these words over in eir mind when Daniel’s eyes cleared and ze whispered, “We have to warn him.”

"Warn whom?"

"The first enchanter," Daniel clarified, raising hir troubled eyes to Ketojan’s. "He is not to die in Kirkwall."

"Did the vision tell you that as well?"

"No." Daniel lowered hirself to a sitting position on a nearby outcropping of rock, white-knuckling hir darkwood cane-staff. Hir shoulders drooped wearily, but hir voice was resolute. "Maybe. I just… I just know. I’ve looked into his eyes, Ketojan. Into _him._ I _know.”_

—

And so it went. The haunted prophet ripped the sky open, and Daniel nodded once, decisively, and turned to the aghast first enchanter.

"Go. Now."

 _"What?"_ Orsino spluttered, his eyes wide, high spots of colour dotting his cheeks. _“Go?_ Go where? My place is here, what do you—”

Knight-Commander Meredith was shouting, Sebastian the exile was shouting, Isabela who loved them all was attempting to quell the crowd’s surging… the Gallows as a whole was in an uproar the likes of which Ketojan had not seen since the showdown at the Viscount’s Keep some years ago. Overwhelmed, ey felt magic flicker through eir body, like electricity through storm clouds, and struggled to remain calm.

"Ketojan!" Daniel was calling eir. "Take Orsino. I will… I will take care of Anders."

"You will kill him," Ketojan clarified, and eir heart stuttered at the concept. Perhaps in all of this time at Daniel’s side, ey had grown strangely fond of these strange and fervent creatures, these fiery hearts and wounded but tenacious spirits. Isabela had gone to Anders, seemed to be asking him _why,_ seemed to be upset, but not with him. She said something, and he nodded, slowly and surely. She leaned up and pressed her lips to his forehead, her hands light on his jaw, and turned away. Leaving him for Daniel.

"I will kill him," Daniel repeated, lowering hir head for the briefest of moments. "Because I must. Take Orsino. Take him to the docks. Ensure he leaves."

Ketojan turned to the tall, indignant elf, who stared at him defiantly. “What will you do? _Carry_ me out of here?”

"I will if I must."

"My responsibility is to the Circle! My life belongs to—"

"The Circle will break. There is nothing you can do… except live to tell this tale."

Orsino paled, but his jaw remained set. “You do not know that.”

"I do not. But Daniel does."

Daniel stood in front of a kneeling Anders, one hand on the man’s stooped shoulder, but hir eyes were fixed upon Ketojan and Orsino. Meredith was watching Daniel, waiting impatiently for hir to do what ze’d been commanded to do, her fingers twitching as if she itched to do it herself.

"Daniel warned me about Quentin," Orsino murmured, and Ketojan felt some of the fight go out of him. "And I… saw hir in the Fade. Two nights ago. Meredith was about to… _kill_ me. Ze touched Meredith, and she turned into red stone.”

Anders, or perhaps Justice, or perhaps both, whispered, “Blessed Andraste. Blessed Shartan. Thank you,” as Daniel sank the dagger in to the hilt, gently lowering him to the Gallows floor.  
Isabela raised her burning eyes to the roiling sky, and marvelled at how much she’d come to believe in the machinations of a destiny bigger than her.  
And Orsino let the crowd swallow him as the Tal-Vashoth mage led him away.

—

"And where is our precious first enchanter?" Grace shouted, her voice filling the vast space that was the Circle’s Great Hall. "For all his pretty words, he’s run scared! He knows the reckoning has come, and he cannot protect us! He _will_ not!”

The doors swung open. The elf with the strangely coloured, faraway eyes stood there, with hir wicked darkwood staff. And behind hir was the pirate woman, who certainly didn’t seem so roguish now.

"Why are you here?" Grace spat, stepping forward. "To die?"

"It is possible," Daniel admitted, stepping forward as well. The mages congregated around Grace, and she felt their collective power surge within her. Isabela drew her daggers and began to circle. "But it is not likely."

When most of the mages were collapsed in pools of their own blood, Grace called upon them yet again, brought them close to her and felt their flesh kiss hers, their blood mingle with hers, their essence become hers.  
She had never wanted sex, had never needed sex… and now she knew why. Nothing so base and earthly could compare to this.

The doors slammed open again just as her terrible ritual came to completion. Daniel and Isabela spun around, fearing the worst — but it was not templars, not Meredith grown impatient and bloodthirsty during their battle with the mages.

"No mercy, no saviour," Ketojan murmured, remembering, as ey stared up at the fleshy monstrosity the woman had become. "Only _Grace.”_

Ketojan took Orsino’s staff in hand and joined the fray.

—

In the moment of her death, Grace could be seen in the terrible eyes of the abomination she’d become.

Isabela and Daniel had fallen, but Ketojan did not fear. They were not yet dead, and eir own magic was surging, still virile, still intense. Ey would heal them, when ey were done with Grace.

"This Circle… was damned from the beginning," Grace rasped, her demon’s voice thick with the blood in her lungs. "I could have… I could have…"

"Do not fret." Ketojan almost smiled as ey touched the narrow end of Orsino’s staff -- given to em because it was too iconic for Orsino to carry any longer -- to the abomination’s sallow grey flesh and poured magic into it. Healing magic, healing of the most absolute kind, for the most incurable of ills. "Your purpose is served. Panahedan."

Covered in her blood, Ketojan left the staff lying in the carnage that had been Grace’s final form, and went to rouse the twin hands of the Maker — the mercy and the saviour, after all.


End file.
